Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli

I love Jerry Spinelli. I have never been disappointed by a Spinelli book, even Wringer, a book whose subject matter is incredibly repulsive to me. I think the first Spinelli book I ever read was Maniac McGee. I loved it so much, and I have such a high opinion of it, that I am sure if I ever read it again I’d be disappointed. I think over the years it has taken on this almost holy aura, I have built it up to be something more than it ever was, than it ever could be. So I refuse to read it again. But when I saw Spinelli’s name on Stargirl, I knew I had to read it.

Hmm…..first, I want to point out that it’s no Maniac McGee. But it IS good. The storyteller is Leo, he’s somewhere in the 14-17 range (I already forgot!), and he tells us about a new student in his school—a girl who’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. She has named herself Stargirl, she dresses like Little House on the Prairie, she has a pet rat, she carries a ukulele around with her, she sings Happy Birthday to strangers, she dances in the rain, etc.

To compress the entire book into a few sentences: Stargirl charms the school. Leo falls in love. They sort of date (dating Stargirl is not like dating a “normal” girl). The school turns on her. Leo tries to make her change. It fails. She eventually leaves. Leo moons over her for the next 15 years.

This is a really sweet book, but it also…..unnerved me a little. Because at times I felt that Spinelli himself wasn’t sure whose side he was on—at times you cheer her on for her uniqueness, but at other times she comes off as retarded. I’m serious: mentally deficient. She is completely unaware of her surroundings ONLY when people are unhappy with her. She just doesn’t see it. And she inserts herself into other people’s lives to the point that she goes to a stranger’s funeral and gets kicked out and STILL does not understand what was wrong about it. She can spout some really beautiful things about enchanted places, but she doesn’t get modern society’s rules at all. I like to think Spinelli did that on purpose: he’s not going to create a character that’s perfect so you’ll know “ok, I’m supposed to love her”. He creates a character that just……is. And you respond to her how you will.

With Leo…Leo is all of us, I think. He turns on her, in the end (to totally spoil it for you) but it bothers him for a long time. He never forgets her and you know that he wants to see her again. I hated Leo at points in this book. He loves her, and yet he wants to change her COMPLETELY so that the school will like her again. I wanted to shake him for that, but it’s such a human thing to do, to want to “fix” things, that I suppose I shouldn’t hold it against him.

Screw that, I’m holding it against him: Leo is an asshole.

My favorite part: mockingbirds. A character talks about how he/she thinks that mockingbirds not only mimic birds of today, they also mimic birds that lived a thousand years ago, that the songs have been passed down through the generations and that when you hear a mockingbird sing you might be hearing a bird that’s been extinct since before your great-great-great-grandmother was born. I really liked that idea.

I've got the sequel to this, called "Love, Stargirl" and I'm anxious to see how this whole Leo/Stargirl thing works out.